iPh Sales Surpass All Expectations : Shares take a 7% Jump

In the third quarter of this year, iPhone sales surpassed the expectation of Wallstreet, breaking the doubts that the demand for the company’s most important product was fast approaching a roadblock. With path-breaking success, the shares of Apple Inc. spiked by 7 percent in after-hours trading.

Apple being the most valued publicly traded company, has sold more than 40.4 million iPhones in Q3, seeing a drop of 15% sales as compared to that of the year-ago quarter but greater than the average analyst forecast of 40.02 million, according to research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

Despite greater sales than expected in some markets, Apple’s phones have seen a slump in demand in China, owing to the economic uncertainty there. Demand has also slowed in more mature markets where people have a tendency to hold on to their phones for longer. The dip in the sales has given rise to concerns about the ability of Apple garnering same response that it is generating from other markets and whether the tech leader will be able to generate profits as expected by Wall Street.

To counter these doubts, Maestri said , “the company reduced channel inventory by $3.6 billion, exceeding the $2 billion expected reduction, indicating that the sales were better than they appeared. Customer demand was better than what is implied in our results and better than we had anticipated.”

CEO Tim Cook says, with a new cheaper phone launched this year, Apple is reaching out to customers it didn’t have access to earlier. Wait to see what’s in store.